Trying to describe what I must call down here the Nirvanic body, the only word that comes to me in substitution
for “body” is radiance. One might describe the Buddhic body as a Star raying
forth its glories. But transition to Nirvana seems to spread my Star out so
that there is neither centre nor circumference, but only dazzling radiance. If
I could look upon this brilliance from some para-Nirvanic
region I should be able to discern its limitation, not so much a spatial
restriction, as a limitation in the radiance-scheme and the radiance-intensity.

This lustre of mine, indescribably
glorious though it is, is obviously only in the becoming, Wand when I compare
it with the radiance of my seniors I perceive, first, that in it the Nirvanic Light is only in embryonic co-ordination, in what
I may call rough outline; and second, that the very Light itself, dazzling
though it be, lacks the scintillation which time and growth alone can give. I
notice that Those who are Masters in these Nirvanic
regions, and have fulfilled its seven great fields or planes, shine with the
glories of still greater splendours, their Nirvanic radiances being suffused, interpenetrated, with
higher effulgences which I can sense but shall take
long ages to achieve.

In some ways, from the standpoint of the lower planes, the word
transcendence is more appropriate even than radiance, for it indicates the
going beyond every single limitation worn by the planes beneath. Time, space,
form - these are transcended. They have ceased to manifest, though remaining in
potentiality, or

I could not assume them as I descend; as I pass outwards. I am
well aware that such transcendence suggests an annihilation of all that on the
lower planes seems to make life real - the ego, the personality, the
individuality. If these are gone, what remains? Is Nirvana, after all, the
annihilation which some philosophers have thought it to be?

My answer is that all these things, however substantial they may
appear down here, however much they may seem to be our ultimate foundation, are
themselves but reflections of a nobler substans,
themselves rest on deeper foundations still. Individualized Divinity exists in Nirvana, and doubtless in para-Nirvana
too, even though its reflections as time, space, .form and as the lower
individualities we know as ego, personality and individuality, are unmanifest, potential. We have to learn that individuality
does not necessarily demand description in terms of time and space and form as
we know these in the outer

worlds. There is individuality in other terms, in terms of Nirvanic time, Nirvanic space, Nirvanic form - the archetypes of lower time, lower space, lower form.

I find myself tempted, as I experience more, to speculate that
individuality, the condition to which we cling so furiously in the lower
regions, becomes far less precious and vital as we pass beyond the more Mayavic planes. There is something that matters far more
than George Arundale, a something of which

George Arundale at his very best is but a feeble reflection.

Inevitably, we personify. Even Theosophists personify. Many of us
probably think of the Logos Himself as some King or Person. We cannot bring
ourselves to think of the disappearance of individuality, for we then come face
to face, because our

experience stops short, with annihilation, and evolution will then have
been in vain.

So far as I am able to judge, much disappears
which in our lower bodies we would fain cling to, just as it is a wrench to
lose the causal body as we enter the Buddhic plane. But the loss of this body
troubles us not at all on the Buddhic plane, and the loss of the Buddhic body
troubles us not at all on the Nirvanic plane. Why?
Because we approach more and more closely to the Root-Seed of all bodies, which
is none of them, but out of which each body proceeds as the Root-Seed sends
downwards its shoots of Life. Already, at the Buddhic level the Monad for the
first time since individualization from the animal kingdom occupies, at all
events for a moment, one of its dwellings. At the Nirvanic

level the tenancy of the lower bodies begins to become more permanent,
until at last the Monad and its lower vehicles are one.

Before this, the Ego himself has, of course, led the way in
occupation, shedding at last what to many has seemed a
strange indifference. But the Monad Himself replaces His temporary substitutes
as these higher regions are ascended, and takes the place of all that hitherto
has seemed so utterly indispensable. George Arundale at his best is but a
shadow of that which sent George Arundale forth. George Arundale may come or
go. He ceases to matter; and I am learning, as I make Nirvana my home, to treat
George Arundale even at his best as but a means to an end, a tool which has had
its day, may still have its day, but can quite well cease to be at any time.

This is an amplification of my earlier experiences in Nirvana, but
I am by no means sure if I have made myself intelligible. In any case there is
no loss, but always gain. The ladder remains even though I cease to use it. We
do not kick away the rungs by which we have ascended. And as the lower planes
are to the subtler planes above, so is the Nirvanic
plane to the planes above it. It must surely be the densest region of the
series of regions that stretch beyond it. Even I can perceive that the lowest
sub-plane of Nirvana is dense (inappropriate as the adjective seems in
reference to Light) as compared with the higher sub-planes. I can only repeat
that individualized Divinity exists as definitely

in Nirvana as, indeed more definitely in Nirvana than, it does down
here. When we transcend our time, our form, we do not subtract; we add.

It is as if an individual living in a small cottage were to
become the king of his country. While the cottage remains his world, kingship
would seem a limitation. He would be lost in it. But when he is ready for
kingship, when he has ceased to be his cottage and only uses it, then he loses
nothing by becoming king, even though the cottage-time, the cottage-space and
the

cottage-form may have been transcended. He can even live in
the cottage if he so desires, at all events from time to time, but he is no
longer limited by it. Has he lost his individuality by becoming a king? The
difference between the kingly individuality and the cottage individuality is as
the difference between individuality in Nirvana and individuality below.
Becoming king he has added to

himself,1 however much the cottage may have been subtracted. To the
cottager there is a subtraction; to the king there is addition.

Let us follow for a moment this simile of the king. Consider the
difference between the king and the cottage - the greater power of the king,
his greater splendour, his wider vision, his deeper
understanding. The king lives in a time and space and form different from those
of the cottager. He can do far more in

his time. His time is fuller, more potent. His area of movement is
far wider. He contacts so much of which the cottager remains necessarily
ignorant. His form is so different from that of the cottager. He has many
forms, he has to be many things to many people, he has many functions in his
State, all depending upon

his kingship. Many things he does which the cottager does. He eats,
drinks, sleeps, works. But he does all these things
differently, and to greater ends.

The cottager may live to eat, but the true king eats to live. The
king lives in another world, though both he and the cottager may be in the same
world. One set of values and standards for the king; another set, even with
regard to the same things, for the cottager. The things precious to the
cottager may have 1

little value to the king, just as the things which the king cherishes
may mean nothing to the cottager. The cottager looks upon the world with a
cottager’s eyes. The king looks upon the world with the eyes of a king. The
cottager, as the poets so often tell us, would not exchange his lot with that
of kings, because he would not be happy in the wider sphere - he knows but
limited

happiness. But the king - the true king - would have little hesitation in
exchanging his lot with that of the cottager, because he could be as kingly in
the cottage as in the palace, as kingly in the cottage-state as in the
Nation-State over which he rules. The greater can limit itself far more easily
than the less can expand. The king can be kingly anywhere, and that is all that
matters to him. He depends upon himself. The cottager depends upon his world.

It is this transition from dependence upon outer things to
dependence upon the kingliness within that marks the upward growth. From living
in a world, I become a world. And some day I shall transcend even this.

I should like at this point to emphasize the fact that on
entering Nirvana we absorb it far more than Nirvana absorbs us. It might be
thought that, once bathed in the glories 1of Nirvana, an individual would
practically become its slave, leaving it with difficulty, effecting a veritable
annihilation of the lower worlds so far as regards any joy of living in them.
It might be thought

that he would become Nirvana-absorbed, ever longing for its bliss,
never happy until and unless immersed in it. My own experience is different. It
may, of course, be that as I become more familiar with Nirvana I shall become
more absorbed in it.* (*As a matter of fact I do find that I am becoming more
and

more absorbed in Nirvana, but this is just the same as saying that
I am becoming more and more absorbed in life, not by any means only life in
this world but equally life in all worlds, life in all planets and suns and
stars. I am more alive in all worlds, as much in the physical world as in any
other.) Yet from the very beginning of contact with Nirvanic
consciousness there has been an overwhelming eagerness to convey something of
its reality to the worlds in which I have grown so long. To contact Nirvana is
like a debtor suddenly finding himself with unexpected means to liquidate some
of his debts to his creditors.

We owe much to the outer world. We have lived in it for ages. We
have grown in it. However much we transcend it we still remain its debtors.

God Himself is paying his debts of long ago in the Divinity-infused
systems and universes 1of which we are part. Is it irreverent to say that
through these very payments He Himself grows, as we grow through ours? Indeed,
it is only as

we are eager to pay that the wherewithal comes to us for payment. I
could not contact Buddhi save as I am seen to be realizing my true
relationships in the lower worlds.

I could not transcend Buddhi save as I am seen to be dedicating
the power of Buddhi, as I have already been dedicating the powers below. No
transcendence of the lower is possible save as it becomes consecrated again by
us to the ends to which God consecrated it aforetime. We must remember His
consecration of His Life to a Divine unfoldment or apotheosis. We must
transubstantiate, even as He is ever transubstantiating: which, put in simple
language, means that we must live in terms of Brotherhood. Brotherhood must be
substituted for the smaller self.

My longing, therefore, is to share Nirvana, not to cut myself for
ever off from external surroundings, but to carry Nirvana everywhere, no matter
where. I could not dare to enter Nirvana otherwise, or I truly believe I should
indeed experience some form of annihilation. Its Light would burn me up. Only
can I

enter Nirvana as I am ready to recognize Nirvana for that which Nirvana
truly is, and as Nirvana is ready to recognize in me a neophyte who has
performed an act of consummation on the lower planes and who, therefore, has
won the right to further power which he may be trusted to use as so far he has
used all power entrusted to him.

There must be in me the dawning of the essential Nature of
Nirvana, which is not annihilation, but an infinitely deeper radiance, an
infinitely deeper wisdom, power, love. Hence; given such dawning, safely may I
enter, for I shall be entering only to live more abundantly.Nirvana
has been born in me. It is a condition of
consciousness. I cannot express Nirvana in aught that is less than Nirvana; but
I can suggest it in the denser matter beneath, I can re-mould forms into closer
approximation to its formless majesty. I can remember Nirvana, and I can live
my daily life as unto Nirvana, pointing to Nirvana. And this is what I must do,
for I can only know Nirvana myself as I lead others towards it. But when I say
I must lead others to it, I ought to make it once more clear that Nirvana is
already in them.

As I have already said, Nirvana is not somewhere in space. It is
a state of our consciousness, of the consciousness in every individual. What I
have set forth in these pages is waiting to be set forth, either in similar or
in other terms, by all. Time is, of course, needed. The seed does not become
the bud at

once. But it is only time that is needed. A short time for the wise,
a long time for the ignorant; a short time for those in whom the sense of the
Unity of Life is growing strong, a long time for those who have still to learn
many lessons in the outer world.

Let none, however, imagine that in any
sense perfection is needed for entry into Nirvana. It is not a state of
perfection. I am able to reach its lowest stages even though there are still
many fetters which bind me to the human kingdom. It is a state of being, and
all states of being, since they are limitations of the One, must necessarily be
imperfect, partial. That it is a state nearer

perfection than all lower conditions of consciousness is, of course,
obvious.

That there is greater unfoldment in it is true. Nirvana is a
condition of indescribable bliss and power. But it is by no means the ultimate,
and he who reaches it has not long left the preparatory school of life.

At the first of the Great Initiations he finally completed the
earlier stages, and now at the fourth great step he is equipped, with the aid
of the powers of the second and third steps, for more serious service, for real
leadership in the outer world. He enters Nirvana with fetters still about him -
still with certain limitations and weaknesses, incompletions.
Side by side, if I may use the expression, there dwell together the Nirvanic consciousness and all the other modes of
consciousness of his being. But the lower modes tend to merge in the higher
mode, for his attention is towards the Light. He ceases to be the slave of
these lower modes, for he takes up his abode in the higher. No longer masters,
these lower ranges become servants, and so higher and
higher does the gradually liberated individual climb, sub-plane after
sub-plane, in the kingdom of Nirvana. Little by little
this consciousness, itself unfolding, transmutes all lower forms, till at last
the individual’s waking consciousness is an unfolded Nirvana, and all other
modes are active as they happen to be needed. This, and certainly much more
than this, is the normal life of the Masters of the Wisdom.